


The Call

by amuk



Category: Angel Beats!
Genre: Battle, Community: 31_days, Dancing, Family, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-24
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 17:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amuk/pseuds/amuk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They change and they move and this calling is something they still can't resist.  Of music and fighting and the urge to live.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Call

**Author's Note:**

> So, originally, I was just going use characters that aren't really expanded on in the series because they had to go ahead and rush the ending. I did put at least two, so I suppose that is better than nothing. And the last one was happier than the others, so it kind of doesn't fit, but...I guess it can represent the healing after a bruise?
> 
> Prompt: The five colours of a bruise

1\. Yellow

It's innate, this talent of his to dance around bullets and twirl past enemies. TK slides through the halls, slips out the windows, and the feeling is as natural as breathing.

 

As natural as dancing, as putting one step in front of the other, his hands snapping to the beat. He jumps, skips, (ONE, two, three, FOUR), and the song in his mind doesn't leave, merely amplifies itself.

 

If TK had to chose another life, another reincarnation, he would like to be music, to be the notes he sees floating in the air. Melodies and tunes echo in every sound, calling out to him, and he merely responds.

 

That's why the combat comes so easily, why he can swing a bat at ease and ace every test. It's simply a matter of responding to the lyrics he sees, the sheet music he reads.

 

"Join me," Yuri demands, out right, following the beat of her drum.

 

It's a calling he can't resist.

 

2\. Blue

 

Shiina laughs when she sees the boys in her group. They panic, running across the bridge in a scrambled order. There is no rhyme or reason to their methods--just blind swinging and worried stabs.

 

They have nearly no discipline, yet again. They never had it in the beginning, but the few times that Yuri put her in charge of training, they managed to get a crude semblance of it. She'll have to do something about this later.

 

(Sweat dripped off her, her muscles screaming as she ran yet another kilometre. Climbed another cliff. Did another push-up. Held her breath as she hunted from the trees. Swam up rivers. Training is not for the weak-willed.)

 

Someone stumbles and instinct takes over. This is where she dashes in.

 

This is where the enemies fall, one after another.

 

"Go!" Shiina yells, plunging her sword into yet another body.

 

(She'll be strong enough to protect them all.)

 

3\. Purple

Yuri sees _their_ smiles in each of her teammates. Sees her little brother's stubbornness in Noda, a pout when nothing goes his way.  Her youngest sister laughs in Yui, giggling at the all the nonsensical wonders of the world.

 

It's almost too much to bear. These similarities haunt her waking step. Her teammates die and die again, her family stuck in this meaningless cycle of life and death.

 

(No, not her family, because they died and went somewhere she doesn't deserve to go.)

 

Hinata collapses in front of her, a pool of blood blooming from his body, and she takes a step back. Not again, not now. Why are they all dying again?

 

(They are her family, are every bit as important to her, and she can't lose them again.  Not again, not when she just found them.)

 

Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Yuri calms down, taking in the scene. She is the brains, the one who has to come up with the plan.

 

This is what she can do, this is what she must do.

 

She won't fail this time. She reaches for her gun and grits her teeth.

 

4\. Pink

 

Hinata hates, well, not really, Yui. It's a mixture of annoyance and irritation most of the time. She's demanding and screeching and just plain childish. How in the world could someone like her end up where they are?

 

Even worse, she's not really all that useful to the cause, barely able to cock a gun or dodge a swing. No muscle, no brains, Yui is lucky she can sing or else she'd be out of a job.

 

Yet...yet...she is bright and she is cheerful and it is something that is sorely missing from their group. They have their moments, when they can think positive or do something ridiculous, but Yui brings that sunlight all the time.

 

It's enough to remind him that not everything is a war. There are things more important than fighting, moments where relaxing and goofing off is okay.

 

(And then, by the time he realizes this, she's already gone. He struck out once again, missed catching that lucky ball of his, and all that's left is to stand in the empty field and try not to mourn.

 

She'd hate that.)

 

5\. White

 

Angel--no, Kanade. Her name is Kanade so why does Angel sound just as natural? In her dreams, in those thoughts that hover between reality and imagination, she hears someone murmuring _Angel, Angel, Angel._ A voice as familiar as her heartbeat calls for her.

 

Only, she's never been called Angel in her life.

 

Humming to herself, she glances at her watch. Her sister is late, once again, and Kanade will have to go on without her.

 

Even this song is familiar, she thinks as she starts to walk, this song and that purple-haired girl who wished that they--

 

"Hey!" a voice calls out to her, jarring her from her thoughts. A hand rests heavily on her shoulder and she follows it to its owner. A boy, about her age, is staring at her in surprise.

 

The first words she can think of are _Thank you_ but that makes no sense.

 

Nor does the relief that sinks through her bones, bringing a smile to her lips as he apologizes and introduces himself.


End file.
